Brad's Blog

Irving Penn once said, "A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective." The goal of this blog is to further communicate with my audience, and I humbly hope that my images touch your heart as they have mine.

I am most interested in the slightly imperfect, the quirky and original. Years of fashion photography have created a bit of a backlash in me. Instead of looking for the uber-perfect fashion model, I found myself searching for authenticity in my subjects. It was later explained to me that I was practicing elements of Wabi-Sabi, which is a study of the imperfect, flawed beauty and understated elegance. I was commissioned to photograph the Fall/Winter Lookbook for 1701 Bespoke and another concept was brought to my attention - Sprezzatura: A studied carelessness in Italian Fashion. I was apparently doing this with my photography as well. A subtle yet purposeful collar left unbuttoned, a watch worn over a shirt cuff or the skinny end of the tie being barely longer than the wide end. The more I explored the concept, the more I found it fit Detroit perfectly. There is also a wonderful originality that can't be falsified. It's a certain ownership of wearing something unusual with pride and bravado.

Detroit is doing this. I have never seen anything like the originality of Detroit; it is salvaging it's heritage but also re-inventing itself. I would never have thought of the words "Detroit" and "Sprezzetura" to be in the same sentence; yet here we are with the ultimate juxtaposition that is exactly what the world would never expect. Detroit is a true original.

Wether we call it Juxtaposition, Wabi-Sabi, or Sprezzatura I think Detroit has it. We are a wonderfully imperfect original work of art.